"So what is the state of the Hurd? Is it vaporware, like Duke Nukem Forever? Fortunately not: the code exists, there is still work going on (for instance as part of Google Summer of Code), and there are even some relatively functional Hurd distributions. Let's look first at the code and the current architecture, and then at the Hurd distributions."

The code for duke nuke'em has also been consistently worked on since the project started on, and there have been several playable demos made for the press. There really isn't much difference between the two, but my bet is that the duke will be kicking ass and chewing bubble gum long before we have usable HURD machines.